You don't have to play Season One or 400 Days to enjoy Season Two, however we recommend that you do in order to get the most from the story.

Season One of The Walking Dead won over 90 Game of the Year Awards.

The Walking Dead Season Two continues the story that began in Season One. You are Clementine, a young survivor in a world gone to hell. The dead have risen to feast on the living, and the living cannot be trusted.

Note: As of this review (10/17/14) I am only about halfway through the game, but I saw that there weren’t any reviews yet for the retail version and thought someone might want to know about it. When I finish the game, I’ll edit this review.

The question on many people’s minds before buying this game will probably be: is it glitchy like the first? A little bit, but not nearly as bad. When The Walking Dead Season 1 first came out on disk, there were a lot of angry people (myself included) because the glitches made it unplayable on some consoles. It was eventually fixed with patches, but it still caused a lot of frustration at the time. I remember getting about halfway through the second episode, saving my game, and then when I came back to play some more the WHOLE game started over! Another time I completed an episode only to have the game freeze on the stats screen so I couldn’t continue. So far, I’m about halfway through the third episode on The Walking Dead Season 2 and I’ve experienced a bit of lag, but nothing so far on the level of the first game’s game-breaking glitches. The lag usually comes on the “previously on The Walking Dead” and sometimes on the menu. During the game itself I haven’t really had an issue except some really minor lag sometimes when there’s a lot happening on screen, but nothing as bad as the first game where it got you killed. That said, I believe this minor issue will be fixed with a patch.

After it was all patched up, the first Walking Dead game became mine and many people’s Game of the Year for that year. The sequel looks to be the same. Already the first episode was much better than Episode 1 of the first game. I won’t spoil anything, but you really feel for Clementine’s (the little girl you play) situation and there were a few parts that actually made me scream out loud. The suspense is really good. If you never played the first Walking Dead, this isn’t an action/shooter. It’s more of a point-and-click Adventure game with a strong emphasis on story and characters. Your actions and dialogue choices change the story and the way people react to you, and sometimes you have to choose who lives and who dies. There is zombie killing, but it’s more “quick click on the gun to pick it up, now click on the bullets and load the gun, oh no I dropped the bullets! The zombie is getting closer! Hurry!” than button mashing. You don’t have to have played the first game to follow the story, but it helps as this is a continuation (and the choices you made in the first game can transfer over to the second).

The second and third episodes so far have a strong emphasis on humans being the bigger bad guy than zombies. I love The Walking Dead show, but these games to me do a better job of adapting the comics, from the art style to the strong characters and writing.

Recommended.

UPDATE (10/22/14): I’m on the last episode now. Still no problems with glitches, except for really bad lag during the “previously on The Walking Dead”. This is a short game but it is NOT five hours as another reviewer on here commented. I spent about three hours just on the first episode. The game is about the same length as the first, about twelve hours long with replayability.

UPDATE (10/27/14): I finished the game. I did experience ONE glitch on the last episode, but it happened ten seconds after the game autosaved so I just reloaded and it wasn’t a big deal. After finishing the game I think the story is even better than the first game! And, yes, they even topped the first game’s ending. My favorite episodes, though, without going into spoilers were probably 3 & 4.

The disc version of this game has massive flaws–hitching, playback errors, out of sync audio etc. This is the game company’s (Telltale) fault, and it has been well-documented. DO NOT purchase the disc version of this game if you own Xbox 360.This game doesn’t work. It freezes up from the minute you put it in.